


Invitation

by Cameron_McKell



Series: Upon Further Review [49]
Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: M/M, Non-Human Humanoid Society, Non-Human Humanoids, Plants, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8953909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: (Originally written for ikiracake on Tumblr, now archived on the AO3.)Sam gives Tron a present; Tron feels guilty.





	

“Here.”

Tron shifted his video output from the sector status updates to Sam, to signify the priority of his attention; all Users held priority while on the Grid, but Sam was… special.

He was also holding something green.

“What is it?” he asked, standing to walk around the desk, so as to examine it more closely.

“It’s a plant. Specifically, an aloe plant,” Sam replied with a little shrug, then carefully handed over the black, bowl-shaped item the plant - the ‘aloe’ - was resting in and atop.

Tron ran touch-scans of the bowl-item, evaluating this new arrival from the User world. It showed no signs of hostility - though there was a lack of supporting data - so he set it down onto the desk’s surface, and examined the green portions more closely.

Sam watched as he ran gentle fingers over the aloe leaves, then put his recently-freed hands to use scrubbing back then forward through his hair. “I thought you might like it; it makes a sort of sap that helps with sunburns.”

“Sunburns?” Tron asked, glancing at Sam, before turning his focus to the aloe’s potting mix.

“Prolonged exposure to the sun can damage the skin,” Sam clarified, pointing to the skin of his face as further elaboration. He used the hand by his face to cover his smile when Tron tasted a tiny portion of the soil, and pulled an absolutely  _horrendous_ face.

“There is no sun in this world,” Tron replied, brushing any excess soil from his hands back into the bowl device. The aloe had no function here, and yet -

“I know,” Sam replied, and there was a peculiar aspect to his tone of voice that Tron had never heard from him before. It was similar to documented examples of ‘nervous’. Was this what Flynn had meant by ‘shy’? “But I don’t know whether or not the sun would give you sunburns, you know… if you visited the User world.”

Tron’s movement-based processes stalled, and again he evaluated the concept of visiting the User world. Sam wanted him to - and made no secret of the fact, as evidenced by the aloe on his desk - and Quorra had already demonstrated that it was  _possible_ that a program could do so -

\- but that world was for  _Users_ , and _he_ was just a program.

Flynn had called him ‘Basic’, before. 

He could predict with 86.6% accuracy the sort of expression Sam would have if he said no, though.

“The Grid needs me here,” he hedged slowly, then lifted the aloe once more with one hand. Sam looked like he was preparing to argue the point, though, so Tron stepped close to him, and lightly brushed the circuits on the back of his hand over the broader circuit along Sam’s arm. The distraction was successful, and Sam shuddered slightly. “Does the aloe have operating guidelines?”

Sam shuddered again, harder, then nodded. “Yeah, I brought a file on how to care for it. And on hydroponics, just in case.”

Tron nodded, then turned his hand to wrap around Sam’s back, leading him away from the desk, toward the hidden file and rest. Or other activities. “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam just nodded, and Tron’s visual output shifted to the aloe again. It curved delicately, like the old ISO directories, but with a mathematic precision similar in execution to Clu’s early - and by Tron’s assessment, best - works, in one combined existence. It was beautiful.

Tron’s shifted his visual output between the plant and Sam, and wondered again at what sort of place the User world could be. 

It was not a place for a program like him.

… But the concept of visiting was so  _tempting_.

* * *

The third time Tron visited the User world, he brought the aloe plant with him, even though he already knew the sun would not damage him.

Quorra was the one accompanying him that day, and they discussed the little plant - growing surprisingly well for this being the first time it had seen the sun in many cycles - on the way to her vehicle.

The User world had its own problems and discrepancies, but that didn’t stop it from being even more wondrous than he could have estimated.


End file.
